Deep State: Secret Societies: Skull and Bones, Bohemians, Illuminati

Documentation has existed since at least the 1700s about secret societies formed to control governments. Even now in America, such societies attract rich and connected people.

Secret societies such as the Bohemian Grove and Skull and Bones play a major role in American affairs and have for generations; that much is clear and well documented, as we shall show. But most Americans have paid little attention to what happens outside of the media spotlight — until now. In recent months, public perceptions have started to change as the “Deep State” inadvertently exposed itself publicly in its war against America, the Constitution, humanity, and President Donald Trump. And in fact, thanks to hacked e-mails and public statements by members, it is now proven that many of the swamp creatures involved in the occult secret societies of America — another key component of the Deep State behind the Deep State — see Trump and his agenda as a “disaster.” According to at least one insider, that is because Trump is not involved in the secret societies and has not been involved in their rituals.

Amid an unprecedented and highly coordinated campaign to destroy Trump, first as a candidate and later as a president, a fast-growing segment of the American electorate has started realizing that “We The People” have not been getting the full story. As part of that awakening, the concept of a “Deep State” or shadowy “swamp” working behind the scenes has captured the public imagination. The idea is now as “mainstream” as can be: Establishment-media polls show about half of Americans now recognize definitively that the Deep State exists. Trump himself has mentioned it. And even much of the establishment press — a key component of the Deep State — has now grudgingly acknowledged that the Deep State exists, if only to muddy the waters about its true nature. But in this series, The New American magazine aims to connect the dots and reveal the shadowy networks that play such an enormous role in U.S. and global affairs behind the scenes.

Even America’s first president, George Washington, was deeply concerned about the insidious machinations and influence of one particular secret society, and its infiltration in America. “It is not my intention to doubt that the doctrine of the Illuminati and the principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States,” Washington wrote in a letter to a friend that is still posted on the government’s online archives. “On the contrary, no one is more satisfied of this fact than I am.” America’s most prominent Founding Father also warned of the Illuminati’s “diabolical tenets” being spread in America in a 1798 letter to Reverend G. W. Snyder, who had sent him a crucial book on the society. Also in 1798, then-Yale President Timothy Dwight warned that the Illuminati was willing to use “murder, butchery, and war” to overthrow religion, government, and civilization. More than a few scholars recognized that the goals of these conspirators included overthrowing all the governments and religions of Europe to build a cosmopolitan “brotherhood of man” while undermining family and property rights.

The historical Order of the Illuminati that Washington and Dwight warned of was a secret society founded in Bavaria on May 1, 1776, by Adam Weishaupt, a professor of law at Ingolstadt University. According to French Catholic priest Abbé Augustin Barruel in his book Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, Weishaupt had been inspired by the teachings of 18th-century anti-Christian fanatics from France styling themselves “philosophers” or “philosophes,” such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot. His four-volume writings documented, among other important facts, the role of these conspirators in the French Revolution. The book was translated into English by 1799 and was widely read among European leaders, contributing to widespread awareness of the secret machinations of secret societies in those days that has largely been lost in contemporary times.

The secret society of self-styled “Illuminated” ones became incredibly influential by attracting influential men and, particularly, by infiltrating the Masonic lodges of Europe, from Paris and Berlin to St. Petersburg, according to scholars who have studied it. Officially, though, the historical outfit known as the Illuminati, based on concentric circles of influence and secrets surrounding an inner core of conspirators, was said to have been disbanded after its wicked scheming was discovered by Bavarian authorities. The authorities informed their counterparts in other jurisdictions, some of whom also attempted to suppress the society. How successful the crackdown might have been remains the subject of debate among scholars. Some historians and analysts have suggested the conspirators went deeper into hiding, while others have argued that the Illuminati was largely decimated across Europe.

However, the Illuminati’s subversive doctrines and ideas — described as “diabolical” by America’s first president — clearly survived. Virtually the same evil principles articulated by Weishaupt and his band of criminals were articulated in The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels, for example. Those same principles guided the French Revolution, with its murderous hatred for religion and its willingness to use absolute savagery — think mass decapitations, among other atrocities — against enemies of the revolution. Today, many of those evil doctrines spread by the Illuminati are taught as “truth” in universities across America and Europe and around the world, such as the idea that private property rights should be abolished for the most part or the idea that religion is a crutch for the ignorant masses. And as Robison documented extensively, the conspirators continued spreading their subversion across Europe even after their discovery, something that came to be closely associated with the “Enlightenment” and the rejection of religion — and the hatred against Christianity in particular.

More than a few prominent individuals have highlighted the role of Weishaupt (his Illuminati code-name was “Spartacus”) and the movement he founded in laying the groundwork for the modern-day global effort to bring down Christianity, liberty, and civilization. “From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States) ... this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing,” wrote future Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the U.K. Illustrated Sunday Herald in February of 1920. “It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.” He was referring, of course, to the Communist Revolution that seized control of what became the Soviet Union.

Skull and Bones: Brotherhood of Death

By their very nature, “secret” societies are secret, and hence, difficult for outsiders to track and understand — that is, after all, the point of being “secret.” And so, beyond observable ideological similarities, the relationship between historical organizations such as the Illuminati and modern-day secret societies, assuming there is a relationship, is murky at best. But secret societies that bear striking similarities in terms of practicing occultism, totalitarian ideology, subversive practices, obsessive secrecy, hatred of Christianity, and more continue to exist — even in America, to this today. One such organization operating in the United States today is known as the Skull and Bones society. It exists at Yale University, and is sometimes known as the “Brotherhood of Death.” It was founded in 1832 by William H. Russell, whose family was in the opium business, shortly after his return from Germany. The German connection has led many analysts to speculate that Skull and Bones may be an American branch of an international movement — potentially even the Illuminati. But that is simply speculation at this point.

It has been dubbed, probably unfairly, considering that it is known to exist, the “most secretive organization in the world.” And it has attracted a great deal of criticism. Among other concerns expressed by critics are the deeply occult rituals the society is known to engage in. These include bizarre, death-obsessed ceremonies that initiates are required to participate in if they wish to join. For instance, it has been widely reported, thanks to investigations and secret videotapes, that initiates are required to lie in a coffin while engaging in acts that cannot be repeated here while detailing their sexual history to their fellow “Bonesmen,” as members are known. Footage of some of the society’s bizarre rituals, which take place at a location known as “The Tomb,” has emerged in recent years.

In film that was aired in 2001 by ABC News, for example, Bonesmen can be seen and heard engaging in occult rituals involving, among other things, kissing human skulls, followed by what was described by the ABC host as “performing a mock killing.” The screams caught on tape are bloodcurdling.

“Even though it may seem silly to us, it seems to mean something to them,” said Ron Rosenbaum, the reporter for the New York Post who helped obtain the video of the rituals, during a 2001 interview with ABC News. “You can’t argue with the success of Skull and Bones.” The ABC host went on to explain that Skull and Bones has “groomed the American ruling class for generations,” producing leaders of Wall Street, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House.

While the society has largely operated from the shadows since its founding, it did earn some attention during the 2004 presidential election between then-President George W. Bush and then-Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.). Both were members of the society. In separate interviews, late Meet the Press host Tim Russert asked them about it, but got no real answer. “It’s so secret we can’t talk about it,” Bush responded. Kerry, when asked what it means that both he and Bush are members of Skull and Bones, said: “Not much, because it’s a secret.... I wish there were something secret I could manifest, there are all kinds of secrets.” Bush also mentioned the society in his autobiography: “My senior year I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society, so secret I can’t say anything more.” In other words, Americans were given a choice between two members of the same occult secret society, and neither candidate was willing to say a word of substance about the implications and meaning of such a development.

Aside from the two presidential candidates in 2004, many Bonesmen have served at the highest levels of government, ranging from Cabinet secretaries and senators to CIA bosses and Supreme Court justices and at least three presidents. Among the prominent members have been former President George H.W. Bush; James Jesus Angleton, credited with “mothering” the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); neocon journal National Review founder William F. Buckley, Jr., a CIA agent and CFR member who “purged” true conservatives from the “conservative” movement; Secretary of War Henry Stimson; Austan Goolsbee, chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors; leftist Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank; George H.W. Bush’s father, Senator Prescott Bush, who was embroiled in legal troubles for financing the Nazi war machine; multiple CFR founders and leaders; Frederick Smith, the founder of FedEx; Harold Stanley, founder of Morgan Stanley; international mega-banker Averill Harriman; Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett; and both President William Howard Taft and his son, Senator Robert A. Taft. Multiple Rockefellers have also been involved. While not all members go on to powerful positions, many certainly do.

Still today, little is known about the group, which not surprisingly considering its name, uses a skull and crossbones as a logo, along with the number 322. But multiple investigations have been carried out by researchers over the years. Perhaps the most important resulted in the book America’s Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones by Stanford University historian Antony Sutton. In essence, the book argues that Skull and Bones is a “recruiting ground for a global conspiracy for world government,” as history professor, author, and The New American writer Steve Byas explained. Sutton details how the Bonesmen and their co-conspirators use the Hegelian dialectic to advance their agenda. “In this [dialectical] process change requires conflict, and conflict requires the clash of opposites,” he explains. “You can’t just have a ‘right,’ you must have a ‘right’ and a ‘left.’” This was illustrated perfectly, perhaps, in the 2004 presidential election, when Americans were given a choice between a “conservative” Bonesman (Bush) and a “liberal” Bonesman (Kerry).

Sutton wrote other incredible books exposing the Deep State behind the Deep State’s role in promoting communism, including Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution. He also wrote the book Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler. And with researcher Patrick Wood, he wrote Trilaterals Over Washington, focusing on the Trilateral Commission. Each of these offers valuable insight on the true nature of the Deep State, including its most secretive components, such as Skull and Bones. Taken together, the research by Sutton offers among the most comprehensive overviews of the Deep State’s architecture and its operations, which include support for mass-murdering regimes and revolutions.

The Bohemian Grove

Another highly influential secret society operating in America is known as the Bohemian Grove. Like Skull and Bones, this network attracts American presidents, Cabinet secretaries, Big Business titans, mega-bankers, central bankers, “intelligence” agency bosses, military brass, and other leading Deep State characters. All of it is technically secret. The outfit was founded after the Civil War by Henry Harry Edwards, originally as a club for artists, writers, journalists, and other “Bohemians,” ostensibly for them to get together and relax in private. Since then, though, the outfit has grown to include more than 2,500 of the world’s richest and most powerful men — and only men are invited — who come from across America and beyond to meet at a massive retreat in the redwood forests of California. While total secrecy is demanded from members, it is known that the membership rolls have included every GOP president (except Trump) since the early 1920s, along with many Democrats, such as Jimmy Carter.

During the United Nations’ 1945 founding conference (chaired by Soviet spy Alger Hiss) in San Francisco, delegates from around the world were invited to the Bohemian compound, too. “The Club and its members were major players in hosting the UN Delegates,” wrote scholar Peter Phillips in his dissertation for his doctorate in philosophy at the University of California, Davis. “Receptions for UNCIO [United Nations Conference on International Organization] delegates and key dignitaries were held at the Bohemian Club on May 17th, May 29th, June 4th and June 5th. Towards the end of the UN conference the Club invited all delegates to a program at the Grove.” What, exactly, went on there with dignitaries from around the world remains something of a mystery.

While the club’s motto is “Weaving Spiders Come Not Here,” it is a known fact that plenty of official business is conducted at the Bohemian Grove, and especially at the lodges and camps. To get a sense of just how important in public affairs this occult confab is to the Deep State behind the Deep State, consider that former President Richard Nixon boasted of how crucial a speech he gave at the event was on his journey to the White House. “If I were to choose the speech that gave me the most pleasure and satisfaction in my political career, it would be my Lakeside Speech at the Bohemian Grove in July, 1967,” he explained in his autobiography. “Because this speech traditionally was off the record, it received no publicity at the time. But in many important ways it marked the first milestone on my road to the presidency. It was an emotional assignment for me and also an unparalleled opportunity to reach some of the most important and influential men.”

Aside from the power and influence are the occult ceremonies and perversion that have become practically synonymous with the Bohemian Grove. For one, the men — among the world’s most wealthy and influential across all sectors — are known to prance around the redwood forest naked and inebriated, urinating at will throughout the camp. Apparently the ability to urinate everywhere is a symbol of their freedom. More sinister, though, are the dark and occult rituals, widely described as pagan at best or satanic at worst. Some of this has been documented on video as occurring at the annual confab. Perhaps most infamous is the ceremony involving what members claim is a “mock” child sacrifice known as the “Cremation of Care.” During the spectacle, the robed and hooded men gather to chant, some carrying torches, under a 40-foot-tall owl idol that is widely said to be a representation of the Canaanite demon god Moloch, to whom babies and children were routinely sacrificed. Amid bizarre chanting and horrifying screaming, what members claimed was an “effigy” of a child is burned up as a sacrifice to the giant concrete owl.

The reason so much is known about this ritual is that there are still some real journalists in America. Conservative radio talk-show titan Alex Jones managed to sneak into the club through the forest and capture the occult ritual on video camera. It is even creepier than you might imagine. Jones posted the video online, offering the first known footage of the ceremony to the public — and confirming the existence and occult nature of a ceremony that had long been just the subject of unconfirmed rumors.

The words spoken amid the “sermon” offered during this ritual are equally bizarre. “The Owl is in his leafy temple. Let all within the grove be reverent before him. Lift up your heads oh ye trees and be lifted up ye everlasting spires, for behold here is Bohemia’s shrine, and holy are the pillars of this house,” the speaker declares, standing beneath the gargantuan stone owl. “We shall read the sign. Midsummer sets us free! Ye shall burn me once again! Not with these flames! Which hither ye have brought from regions where I reign. Ye fools and priests, I spit upon your fire! O Owl! Prince of all mortal wisdom, Owl of Bohemia, we beseech thee, grant us thy counsel.… O Great Owl of Bohemia! We thank thee for thy adjuration. Be gone detested care! Be gone! Once more, we banish thee! Be gone dull care! Fire should have its will of thee! Be gone dull care! And all the winds make merry with thy dust. Hail, fellowship’s eternal flame! Once again, Midsummer sets us free!”

Blurry still photographs of the event from a century ago provide evidence that the occult ritual has been going on for at least that long. Thanks to the video footage, though, Americans now have smoking-gun proof that top leaders in government and business are gathering for occult rituals in the forest, something almost too bizarre for everyday people to comprehend.

Later, on the street, Jones interviewed David Gergen, a regular attendee of Bohemian Grove and a leading advisor to four different presidents of both parties. Jones mentioned that Gergen had denied in media reports that he ran around naked at the confab, as other attendees are known to do, but that Gergen had publicly admitted to being a “happy member” of Bohemian Grove who likes the folks who come there. “Have you been there for the ceremony, the Cremation of Care?” Jones asked. Gergen, with his facial expression quickly changing, responded: “Frankly, I do not think that is something I need to talk to you about.” Apparently Gergen was confused, believing that Jones had been a member who did not follow his pledge not to disclose what goes on there publicly. “I don’t respect you for that,” Gergen fumed after being “ambushed” by Jones. “You took an understanding that you would not do that film, and you did.” Of course, Jones took no oath and offered no “understanding,” because he went in without authorization.

Another one of the few things that is known about the Bohemian Grove is that members were unsettled by then-candidate Trump and his promises to fight globalism, take on the establishment, promote Americanism, and pursue an “America First” policy. In a hacked e-mail posted by DCLeaks from former Secretary of State Colin Powell to Peter Gordon MacKay, Canada’s former minister of justice, attorney general, minister of national defense, and minister of foreign affairs, Powell dropped a bombshell. “I am back from the Bohemian Grove. Surprise, surprise, I sat next to [Canadian Prime Minister] Stephen Harper a couple of times and had a nice discussion,” wrote Powell, one of the leading figures in lying the American people into the Iraq war that resulted in the practical extermination of the ancient Christian communities there. “Grove attendees know that Trump is a disaster,” Powell continued, adding that “most will vote against” Trump. Many Americans weary of their leaders’ secret rituals took those comments as a ringing endorsement of Trump’s candidacy.

Former House Speaker Newt Ging­rich, himself affiliated with the Bohemian Grove and other key components of the Deep State, explained that the establishment’s disdain for Trump was indeed related to the fact that the current president was not involved in the secret societies. Responding to Mitt Romney’s attacks on Trump during an interview on Fox News, Gingrich, who did back the president, said the attacks were a signal of “the panic of the establishment wing of the (Republican) Party.” The possibility of Trump winning the GOP nomination “absolutely drives them crazy,” Gingrich added. When asked why, Ging­rich dropped another bombshell. “Well because he’s an outsider; he’s not them; he’s not part of the club; he’s uncontrollable; he hasn’t been through the initiation rites; he didn’t belong to the secret society,” said the former House speaker, who apparently was seeking a job in the Trump administration.

The membership lists of these secret societies, then, include many of the most powerful people in America and the world. There is also an astounding degree of overlap between the truly secret societies such as Skull and Bones and the Bohemian Grove, and the secretive but public outfits that make up this Deep State behind the Deep State described here. Beyond those secret and non-secret organizations that make up the Deep State behind the Deep State, there are almost certainly other cabals of totalitarian-minded globalists whose names and even members remain largely unknown to the public. Indeed, there are likely secret societies that are so secret they and their leaders remain virtually unknown to any non-members. Some of the secret history these societies have tried to erase is documented in Art Thompson’s book To the Victor Go the Myths & Monuments: The History of the First 100 Years of the War Against God and the Constitution, 1776-1876, and Its Modern Impact.

Ultimately this is a battle between good and evil: As was shown earlier through the words of prominent globalists such as David Rockefeller and George Soros (and their praise for Mao’s Marxism and Chinese rule), the globalist groups have made clear that their goal is not the betterment of the world for the benefit of the masses. And increased prosperity and freedom and goodness will not be the measures of their success.

At its core, this battle has spiritual components that cannot be ignored. It’s about right and wrong. As John Birch Society founder Robert Welch explained, humanity is faced with a “satanic and diabolic conspiracy.” For Christians and Jews who believe the scriptures, that much is clear. And for those who believe there is a moral imperative that must be adhered to, being active against this Deep State globalist campaign should be a given. American churches, synagogues, and religious leaders must play a role in this battle.

Exposing these forces would go a long way toward stopping them. To that end, there is only one national organization working to stop the Deep State behind the Deep State: The John Birch Society. JBS founder Welch understood that the key to stopping what Rockefeller called a “secret cabal” and its conspiracy for a “one world” system is to expose the agenda and its purveyors, with God’s help, while organizing to stop them and educating the electorate. Nothing else will do. There are no shortcuts or magic bullets. Without an educated electorate, turning the tide will be virtually impossible, absent divine intervention. With the rise of the Internet, and thanks to the foundation laid by the JBS and others, the exposure is happening at an unprecedented rate. But all patriotic Americans must get involved in the fight if freedom is to survive.